Reconfiguring Space and Time in Tribal Narratives of North-East India: A Comparative Literary Perspective

Abstract The tribal narratives of India's North-East have long been read through Western and metropolitan literary frameworks. When universal templates built around linear time and isolated protagonists are applied to indigenous texts, the result is not interpretation — it is erasure. The works of Temsula Ao and Easterine Kire resist this. They demand an approach that begins with the rhythms of the earth rather than the moral progress of an individual hero.This paper introduces the Ecological Chronotope to meet that demand. The framework places the jhum (shifting cultivation) cycle, seasonal festivals, and the sacred geography of the Naga hills at the centre of narrative analysis. The forest in these texts is not a static backdrop. It is a living presence in the community's ethical life. The phases of jhum — clearing, burning, and resting — provide the actual structural scaffolding for narrative pacing. A Tripartite Comparative Model guides the analysis across thematic, structural, and epistemological dimensions. The landscape in these narratives is not a geographical setting. It is a working repository of communal law and ancestral memory. The paper concludes by proposing the Ecological Chronotope as a pedagogical tool, ensuring that indigenous voices are read on their own cultural terms.